Maine lifts shelter in place order as search for the suspect in the Lewiston massacre continues

Maine officials have lifted a shelter-in-place order as the search for the suspect in the Lewiston mass shooting continues.

State Public Safety Commissioner Mike Sauschuck made the announcement Friday afternoon at a news conference in which he named all 18 victims of the mass shooting. All of the victims' families have been notified, officials said.

Sauschuck read the names aloud. Photos of those slain were posted on a board behind him. The reading was followed by a moment of silence.

The announcements came as authorities scoured the woods and hundreds of acres of family-owned property, sent dive teams with sonar to the bottom of a river and scrutinized a possible suicide note Friday in the second day of their intensive search for an Army reservist accused of fatally shooting 18 people and wounding 13 at a bowling alley and a bar in Maine.

A spokesperson for the state medical examiner's office said the victims ranged in age from 14 to 76.

Nearly two days after the shooting, law enforcement officials gave no indication that they have any leads on Robert Card's whereabouts. Sauschuck said at an earlier news conference Friday that authorities were leaving all their options open.

“We’re going to be all over the place,” Sauschuck said. “That’s not saying that we know that the individual is in this house, you know, in that house or they’re in that swath of land, this acreage.”

Police and other law enforcement officers were spotted in several areas around the region on Friday. Divers searched the water near a boat launch in Lisbon, and a farming business in the same town. At points throughout the day, police vehicles were seen speeding through several towns, lights flashing and sirens blaring.

Sauschuck said Friday that authorities were going to conduct extensive searches of the nearby Androscoggin River by air and boat, and that a utility was using its dams to lower the river in the area, but he made it clear that would not be their only area of focus.

Sauschuck said investigators are continuing to look into over 530 tips from the public. He shared a digital tip line set up by FBI Boston for the public to submit tips, images or footage related to the shootings: http://fbi.gov/lewistontips.

Much of Thursday’s search focused on a large property belonging to one of Card’s relatives in rural Bowdoin, where trucks and vans full of armed agents from the FBI and other agencies eventually surrounded a home on Thursday.

The Cards have lived in Bowdoin for generations, neighbors said, and various members of the Card family own hundreds of acres in the area.

“This is his stomping ground," Richard Goddard, who lives on the road where the search took place, said of the suspect. “He knows every ledge to hide behind, every thicket.”

Authorities repeatedly yelled for Card and anyone else inside the home to surrender. But hours later, they left, with state police saying it was unclear whether the suspect had ever been at the location.

Authorities say Card, 40, who has firearms training, opened fire with at least one rifle at a bar and a bowling alley Wednesday in Lewiston, Maine's second-largest city about 15 miles from Bowdoin. The attack left 18 people dead and 13 wounded, three of whom were hospitalized in critical condition, authorities said.

The victims of the shootings include Bob Violette, 76, a retiree who was coaching a youth bowling league and was described as devoted, approachable and kind. Auburn City Councilor Leroy Walker told news outlets that his son, Joe, a manager at the bar and grill, died going after the shooter with a butcher knife. Peyton Brewer-Ross was a dedicated pipefitter at Bath Iron Works whose death leaves a gaping void in the lives of his partner, young daughter and friends, members of his union said.

Authorities have not said how many guns were used or how they were obtained.

People stayed behind locked doors in cities as far as 50 miles from the scenes of the shootings during the shelter-in-place advisory. Schools in Lewiston and Portland, and public buildings in Portland, remained closed Friday. Bates College in Lewiston also canceled classes Friday and postponed the inauguration of the school’s first Black president.

April Stevens lives in the same neighborhood where one of the shootings took place. She turned on all her lights overnight and locked her doors. She knew someone killed at the bar and another person injured who needed surgery.

“We’re praying for everyone,” Stevens said through tears.

The attacks stunned a state of only 1.3 million people that has one of the country’s lowest homicide rates: 29 killings in all of 2022.

Maine Gov. Janet Mills promised to do whatever was needed to “hold whoever is responsible for this atrocity accountable."

As authorities searched for Card, details about his recent behavior emerged. He underwent a mental health evaluation in mid-July after he began acting erratically while with his reserve regiment, a U.S. official told The Associated Press.

Neighbors said the Cards owned the local sawmill, and that years ago a member of the Card family donated the land for a local church.

A telephone number listed for Card in public records was not in service. A woman who answered a phone number for one of Card’s relatives on Thursday afternoon said the family was helping the FBI. She didn’t give her name or additional details.

Eight murder warrants were issued for Card after authorities identified eight of the victims, and 10 more will likely be issued once the names of the rest of the dead are confirmed, police said.

Three of the 13 people wounded in the shootings were in critical condition and five were hospitalized but stable, Central Maine Medical Center officials said. One person, who is in stable condition, was transported Boston and is being treated at Massachusetts General Hospital, a hospital spokesperson confirmed to WBUR.

The attack started at Just-In-Time Recreation, where a children’s bowling league was taking place, just before 7 p.m. Wednesday.

Less than 15 minutes later, numerous 911 calls started coming in from Schemengees Bar and Grille a few miles away.

The search for Card covered both land and water. The Coast Guard sent out a patrol boat Thursday morning along the Kennebec River, but after hours of searching, they found “nothing out of the ordinary,” said Chief Petty Officer Ryan Smith, who is in charge of the Coast Guard’s Boothbay Harbor Station.

A car believed to belong to Card had been discovered by a boat launch in the town of Lisbon near the Androscoggin River, which connects to the Kennebec, and Card’s 15-foot boat remains unaccounted for, Smith said.

In many past U.S. mass shootings, the suspect was found — whether dead or alive — within minutes. But Card was still on the loose more than a full day after the shootings.

The shootings mark the 36th mass killing in the United States this year, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University.

With reporting from The Associated Press's David Sharp, Patrick Whittle, Holly Ramer and Michelle R. Smith, and WBUR's Amy Gorel and Katie Cole.